Governor vetos RDA replacement bills

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a series of bills Saturday that would have streamlined or reestablished a semblance of the state’s disbanded redevelopment agencies.Brown returned Senate Bill 214, authored by Lois Wolk (D-Davis) to the state legislature unsigned.The bill would have overhauled the state’s infrastruc...

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a series of bills Saturday that would have streamlined or reestablished a semblance of the state’s disbanded redevelopment agencies.

Brown returned Senate Bill 214, authored by Lois Wolk (D-Davis) to the state legislature unsigned.

The bill would have overhauled the state’s infrastructure finance district works, a little-used state tool that utilizes bonds for infrastructure-related projects.

Part of the provision would have removed a two-thirds voter approval required to establish the district and allow city council or county board of supervisors to establish it by resolution. The bill would have also expanded the number of projects financed by a IFD.

“This is the State of California saying we’re continuing to take money from local governments,” Vice Mayor Jerry Taylor said on the phone Monday.

Brown’s veto message for the bill stated that “expanding the scope of infrastructure finance districts is premature” and would derail the cities from focusing on winding down redevelopment.

The same reason was rubber-stamped on Brown’s veto message for Assembly Bill 2144.

AB 2144, authored by Assembly Speaker John Perez (D-Los Angeles), also targeted infrastructure finance districts. It had some distinctions from Wolk in that it would reduce the two-thirds voter requirement to 55 percent.

State Bill 1156, authored by state senator Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), was built in part on the structure of traditional RDA agencies, but would have updated it and relabeled the districts Sustainable Communities Investment Authorities.

Brown issued a separate veto message with Steinberg’s bill, stating that he would prefer to take a “constructive look at implementing this type of program” after the process redevelopment wound down and state general funds savings were achieved.

“At that time, we will be in a much better position to consider new investment authorities,” the veto message stated.

Overall, all three bills would detract from the state’s goal of “achieving the General Fund savings assumed in this year’s budget.”

The League of California Cities had backed the passing of Wolk’s bill, SB 214, saying it was the most practical of the three pieces of legislation.

While a far cry from the flexibility that traditional RDAs offered, it would allowed more reasonable options to finance projects for infrastructure projects like fixing roads, maintaining buildings or initiating housing projects.

Taylor expressed some frustration with the bill’s veto, saying that voters at the local level had a better sense of what the community needed and more access to their leaders than at the state level.

“They (the voters) would like us to focus on the infrastructure problems and we don’t have the tools to do it,” Taylor said. “The State of California is not going to come in and fix the southern part of China Lake Boulevard or fix Sunland Street.”

Page 2 of 2 - Mayor Pro Tem Chip Holloway said it was a clear indication of the governor’s intentions toward RDAs.

“I think the governor’s veto only solidifies his resentment towards local government and redevelopment as a whole,” Holloway said in an email Monday. “Every day he can score more revenue from local government and former RDA’s is one less day he has to face the hard decisions of standing up to the special interest in Sacramento and deal with real structural budget reform.”

Holloway was critical of Gov. Brown’s decision to veto SB 214.

“His excuses are shallow, and while they may make sense to the average citizen considering the confusion unwinding RDA’s has caused, the real problem is job creation,” Holloway said.

The state’s actions seemed to rob Ridgecrest and other communities of pursuing those options as best they could.

“This legislation could have been a small first step in achieving that goal but that would have required bold leadership, something that doesn’t exist in the Capitol these days,” Holloway said.